Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Late Fall,Early winter ??

Hi I see a few post about winter hikes, we are having some snow now and during the system and after it will take time for the snow to settle , we have had several storms and hot days so this new system is sitting on a base of ice , the snow bridges will not hold since they are build on the snow from this storm , and the early period of this system is very warm so expect heavy wet snow conditions on the lower sections and deep snow on the upper sections. You know the best advice is wait and get a report from where "they" turned around.

And as always high winds when the systems move through.

Stay safe if you intend to go into the mountains, expect very unstable conditions. Thanks Doug

This is what Whitney Portal Road looked like a few hours ago. It was coming down hard (and wet). There was quite a bit on rockfall on the road.

Nice pictures of the bike Richard . I have not been able to get up there since you helped me in early May . Do you run lower of higher psi for snow riding ?

Nice pics! Mmm snow, haven't been out in it yet this year.

We may be passing through Lone Pine next week and I'm thinking about throwing the xcountry skis in the truck. I live in San Jose and do most my snow play on the west side of the Sierra and Tahoe so I'm not as familiar with conditions/parking spots/etc down here. Is the WP Road a good one for a nice simple stretch-the-legs ski? Any good place to park the truck? I've been up the road many times in the summer but am having a hard time visualizing the road right now - and the cam is a bit, um, blocked.

The Portal Road is usually a lot of fun until the Monster Trucks head up and tear up the snow. I've been able to ski all the way down past Lone Pine Campground to Olivas Ranch Road on one occasion. It's a fun workout (tour if you haven't done it).

As Doug cautions, you need to watch out up there. A few spots on the road have slid in the past and probably will again.


Simon, I haven't had the bike out in several months (other than one ride to Owens Peak), so the pressure is probably lower than it should be for normal road riding. I found out yesterday that I can ride the bike over ice. On the way up to Mahogany Flat (Telescope trailhead) I made it past a few sections of ice on the way up and then just left it in 1st gear and put my legs out to create a quad-pod on the way down. There was only one section where I worried about the speed I built up as I was crossing the ice.

We camped out at the Portal Sunday night. Got snowed on about 4-5 feet overnight. Fun times . I'll post a few pics later.

Thanks again Doug for coming to get us (our car was buried under 3-4 feet of snow at the 7k level).